


The Feral Kitten Pile

by josephina_x



Series: Dimension 46’\>>A [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Feral Ford, Gen, One Year Later, Post-Series, Post-Weirdmageddon, See You Next Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 00:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15425244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: What it says on the tin. ...kinda.





	The Feral Kitten Pile

**Author's Note:**

> Fic: The Feral Kitten Pile  
> Fandom: Gravity Falls  
> Pairing: n/a  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through the end of the series, and some of the books (Journal #3)  
> Summary: What it says on the tin. ...kinda.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> AN: I love-love-love [impish_nature](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Feral+Ford+AU&pseud_id=impish_nature&user_id=impish_nature)’s take on [pinesinthewoods’](http://pinesinthewoods.tumblr.com/tagged/feral%20ford) Feral Ford AU! (And the original stuff too, of course :) So I’m forking their AU(s), as it were -- this Feral Ford AU can be considered similar-ish but slightly different to theirs, thus making this an AU (of an AU?) of an AU ...and also an AU-crossover ;)
> 
> Please note that the visiting Stan and Bill here are _not_ the ones from the Dimension 46'\\-A series. Some of the actions and events that occured in that series ended up being very similar to how they turned out for these guys (and/or vice-versa), up until "Lies". However, the visiting Bill's mentality and backstory are significantly different than what happened to the -A Bill. And this did end up snowballing a bit.

\---

“This is insane,” Stan muttered.

“You’re tellin’ me?”

Stan blew out a breath and glanced over at the guy standing next to him.

The guy who’d just spoken, standing at his right with his arms crossed, side-eyed him right back.

Then they both stared down at Stanford Pines again, who was boldly and bodily curled up around a skinny-as-a-rail teenager, who was curled up in Ford’s arms in-turn. Ford and the kid both looked perfectly at ease in their sleep, their chests rising and falling ever-so-slightly out of sync with each other, their breathing even and slow.

“They’re a _kitten pile_ ,” Stan muttered, then had to stifle a groan as Ford let out that cat-bear-purr thing in his sleep, because he knew what would happen in the next thirty seconds if his brother didn’t hear…

But then Stan found himself going expressionless in disbelief as the kid let out a similar, though much softer, sound himself in what seemed like casual, unconscious reflex.

Stan scrubbed a hand down his face as he heard the stifled, aborted laugh coming from the guy standing next to him. And then...

“Kitten pile, _yeah_. Kittens with _claws_ , maybe. You ever get scratched by one a’ those things before? Not a fun week, healing up after, lemme tell ya. Geez...” were the bemused words Stan heard from the man standing next to him, and he glanced over at him again.

The man looked _tired_. Amused as all get out at the pair of ‘em, sure, but mainly just dead-on-his-feet tired.

And maybe waiting for the other shoe to fall.

“Gotta say, was not expectin’ _this_ ,” the man said, as he gestured down at the two of them. “Whole point of him wanting to leave our dimension and go somewhere else was to get away from any and all Stanfords. My brother in particular,” the other Stanley Pines said with a sigh, still looking down at the teenager.

A teenager who was apparently, supposedly, a Bill Cipher. Just not _theirs_.

...as much as an insane and highly-unwanted one-eyed triangular dream demon could be ‘theirs’, anyway.

“Guess they tired each other out with all the yelling and chasing and stuff,” Stan grudgingly allowed. The guns and magic had come out at first, and then the yelling from each of them -- the Stanleys at Ford and the teen to stop, then the other two at them right back -- and then once nobody had been in immediate danger of getting shot at or magically blown up…

Well. There’d been a lot of _panicking_ , actually. --Panicking from both his brother _and_ the teen-aged human-looking demon, weirdly enough, though they’d each been doing their own panicking about two completely different things. His brother in particular had been panicking about visitors entering into their dimension via portal from out of nowhere. He'd moved on pretty quickly from that, to panicking about _Bill Cipher being alive again_ , because the demon had pretty much outed himself right away almost immediately, what with all the hysterical screaming about Stanfords and Sixers and not getting _tricked_ again.

The _demon_ had been panicking about _Ford_ apparently -- at least in part because he’d not recognized a Ford who recognized _him_ \-- and Stan didn’t like the way the demon’s gaze had kept zeroing back in on his brother’s hands, _or_ the look that had crossed the demon’s face every time he’d done it, either.

The main thing the demon had been panicked about, though, (but also completely irate about for some reason…) was the idea of there being more than one _him_ \-- more than one _Bill Cipher_ \-- in existence. Something about ‘isolated multi-dimensional sets’ and a lizard he was going to kill (that watched things?) that hadn’t made a whole lot of sense, especially with the way the demon had been ranting furiously about it all -- _whatever_ it was -- at the top of his lungs, flailing his hands and arms around in sheer agitation while pacing back and forth across the grass at a rapid speed.

...and throwing off small blue flecks of light -- ones that had looked like magic sparks, to Stan -- as he did so. The demon had seemed near-oblivious to what he was doing, though, and they’d slowly faded out on their own after not seeming to do much of anything but float in the air for awhile in the meantime, but...

It had left Ford twitching on and off, backing away from Bill slowly -- and Stan didn’t blame him, he'd been more than a little disturbed at the display himself -- but when Stan had glanced over at the other Stanley, looking for a cue for when to run like the cops were on his tail…

That other Stanley had just kept on standing where he was, arms crossed over his chest. He hadn’t backed away from Bill in fear, and he hadn’t moved towards him to try and calm him down, either. No, instead he’d looked almost _bored_ as he’d stood where he was and _waited the demon out_. ...And in retrospect, it was pretty obvious that he must’ve seen the demon go off like this on at least one rant before.

But at the time, Stan had thought there’d be an explosion or several from Bill, and he’d been wondering (a) why his brother hadn’t quite gone for his gun yet again, and (b) exactly how suicidal this other version of him must be. At the time, he hadn’t understood why Ford, despite looking as disturbed as he did, had kept his hand only hovering above his gun, clearly waiting for the moment when he knew he’d have to strike or risk them all dying…

But Ford never picked a fight with anything or anyone unless he was protecting his family, hunting for food, or otherwise felt he had no choice but to do so.

And something about the way the demon was acting, or the way the other Stanley was acting, must’ve clued Ford in to the situation maybe not being one of those ‘no other choice’ ones. Because the human-looking demon had worn himself out first, before there had been any actual explosions, before the gun had needed to come out. He’d just yelled himself nearly hoarse until he’d run out of energy, stopping _himself_ to slouch in place, before giving up in the face of his own self-inflicted fatigue and shakily bending over to brace his hands on his knees while panting for breath.

The other Stanley had only waited about two beats before he’d said, “You done?”

The demon had growled out at the ground, irate, “For. the. moment.” between breaths. “Stupid. lizard. HATE. IT. _HATE._ ”

“Uh huh.” And then the other Stanley had turned towards the two of them and said, “So. Looks like we’re gonna be here for awhile while the kid figures things out. Truce?”

“--No,” the demon had said immediately.

“Why not?” the other Stanley had asked blandly of the demon, looking back at him.

“Stanford.” The demon had raised a hand to point it at Stan’s brother, while still bent over bracing his other hand on his knee as he continued to try and re-catch his breath, then let his hand fall.

“Uh huh.” The other Stanley hadn’t exactly looked impressed by the demon’s ‘logic’. “He hasn’t shot you yet,” the other Stanley had said. “I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Rr,” the demon had said, looking annoyed. “I can. Take him.”

“That’s the spirit, kid,” the other Stanley had said to the demon with no spirit whatsoever. “Not the point though, and you know it,” he’d added, to which the demon had given no response other than to raise his head and send a long continuous glare at the side of the other Stanley’s head.

And then the other Stanley had turned back to the two of them _again_ , and said, “So. Truce?”

...The worst part was, the other Stanley had said it all like he was discussing the weather.

The chasing-later had started out completely unwanted by the kid, instigated by a suspicious Ford who had not believed any Bill Cipher of any sort to be inclined to actually _get along_ with anyone else in the slightest -- under any circumstance, let alone a supposed ‘truce’ -- and so Ford had gone about testing just that. Ford had basically done the animalistic equivalent of poking and prodding the Bill _multiple times_ , actively _trying_ to get Bill to lose his temper and drop what he’d obviously considered to be a thin act.

Stan figured that his brother had been wanting to set off an explosion _at himself, the overprotective idiot,_ sooner rather than later, probably because he’d wanted to assess and tackle the situation head-on before the kids returned to the Shack that afternoon, back from their sleepover the previous night at the Corduroy’s cabin. What Stan didn’t completely get was why Ford couldn’t just be content with warning the kids away from the two of them, keeping the kids out of sight and out of range for the interim, and just stick with leaving well enough alone. Because hey, it wasn’t like their two unexpected visitors _weren’t_ planning on moving on soon enough and not coming back.

...But even with all the _very annoying_ physical badgering Ford had inflicted on Bill, of a type that -- let’s be honest here -- probably would’ve left _Stan himself_ two seconds away from hauling off and smacking his brother one in the jaw, Bill by comparison hadn’t _quite_ lost his temper. He’d kept shooting look after aggrieved look at the other Stanley, though -- almost like he’d been looking for some kind of direction -- and at some signal Stan hadn’t quite caught, this ‘human-ish’ Bill had started snapping right back, in an aloof and _almost_ -equal but slightly _less_ pushy tit-for-tat push-back response. ...And then it had slowly evolved into the sort of ‘play’ that Stan figured probably wouldn’t look out of place on one of those nature channel shows or something, if he got cable, between two otherwise really-dangerous predators. And then…

Stan scratched at the side of his neck, then looked over at the other Stanley Pines.

“Do I even wanna know how this all happened in the first place?” Stan asked of the other Stanley, in relation to the whole ‘Bill Cipher being alive, and human, and somehow for some reason _here_ ’ bit, and was awarded a noncommittal shrug for his trouble. “Great.”

He looked back down at the two lunatics sleeping in a curled up pile on the grass in front of them, and then he finally noticed something he hadn’t before.

His brother, in his sleep, had a small smile on his face.

Stan watched and listened as his brother purred again in his sleep, as the teen purred back softly, and then…

Stan looked on in shock as he saw Ford pull the teen further into the curl of his arms unconsciously, his brother’s smile growing slightly. The teen shifted restlessly a bit, and let out a huff of breath, but didn’t fight the forced relocation -- and _didn’t_ completely wake up. And neither did Ford.

...And that was when Stan knew that whatever this was was gonna be bad. Really, _really_ bad.

Stan had known that his brother had once upon a time considered “their” triangle demon a friend -- heck, he’d practically _worshipped_ the thing, from what Stan had seen Ford pull out of that mini-shrine room he’d had downstairs, a room he hadn’t known about until _after_ Weirdmageddon and beginning to regain his memories -- though neither of them had ever talked about any of it…

…but just because _this_ demon wasn’t _their_ demon didn’t mean he wasn’t just as bad, if not _worse_ … right? It didn’t mean _anything at all_ , really.

And yet here Ford was, in all his otherwise usually-twitchy easily-startled highly-sensitive-to-danger and overprotective-of-family post-portal _self_ -ness, literally _sleeping like a baby_ with _the enemy_.

Geez, his brother was an idiot.

\---


End file.
